StarCrossed Souls Slow Dancing
by prosopopeya
Summary: The deaths haunt Georg and Anna both, propelling them forward a little, and in that push toward maturity, they find that they've taken a step toward each other as well. Georg/Anna, post-SA.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Title comes from "Til the End of Time" by DeVotchKa, from the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack. Originally posted July 31, 2007 on my livejournal.

**Star-Crossed Souls Slow Dancing**

They watch their friends fall apart around them. They pick up the pieces, fragments of things that have come to pass, and add them quietly to themselves.

* * *

It takes a while for everything to sink in for Georg. Moritz's death is surreal, too sudden and too close to Sunday; the pastor's sermon about damnation and hellfire, about not having what it takes to make it through the day, disappointing parents and self—it still rings true in his ears, and he walks home with Otto from church with laughter filling the air between them.

Wendla's death is too mysterious. Girls are a foreign subject anyway; Latin is easier to recite, Greek easier to translate. He's still working on sitting next to his piano teacher and being able to stand up without ducking behind the piano an hour later. Anemia means something to his parents, but to him it's just another condition. Hänschen Rilow whispers it to him over lunch with that soft knowing glint in his eye, and Georg stops chewing, stares at him and finds disbelief crawl into him.

"Melchior and Wendla—did _that_?"

Hänschen smirks and chews deliberately, swallowing it down and if Georg weren't too busy wrapped in his own disbelief, he might notice Ernst Röbel beside Hänschen, watching the movement of his throat with something like pained longing.

"Apparently," is Hänschen's reply, sitting straight in his seat. "I imagine it's the real reason he was sent away—not the essay."

This information is new, and Georg holds it out in front of him as he holds his sandwich, unsure what to make of it or what to do with it, and it gets set aside in his mind, to poke and prod later.

In fact, it isn't the deaths or the funerals that make Georg sit back and reflect, but it's the missing head in Latin class, that other empty seat that leaves the front of the room bare. Melchior was who they had all aspired to be, secretly, whether they wanted to admit it or not. He always seemed to have everything together, under control. He had that sort of walking and speaking that conveyed that he knew precisely what he was talking about, and you could only wish to know half so much as him.

There were times when he privately envied Moritz, to be so close to Melchior, but the story of childhood is envy and regret, and now he feels as if he rather missed being caught up in a tragic, terrible storm. He almost feels grateful for speaking in Melchior mostly in passing.

He starts to grow up when guilt follows after thoughts like those.

* * *

It takes Moritz's death for Anna's eyes to open. Church sits sourly in her mouth, fire and brimstone mixing with what she remembered of his eyes, sweet and sad and a little empty, and she finds her jaw clenching lightly. She walks home with Thea, who laughs and tosses her braids, asks Anna to come play by the river, but Anna goes home. She curls up in her window seat and presses her back to the wall, looking out over the fields where she can remember running, laughing. She mourns Moritz without really knowing what she's doing.

Then Melchior's gone and it's almost too quick for her to handle. Anna finds Wendla on the path to the lake, sitting by a tree and looking pale. She stops, kneeling beside her and placing a hand on Wendla's shoulder.

"Wendla? Are you alright? You look ill."

"I've been feeling a little weak lately, that's all," she says with a shrug and an empty smile, eyes hollowed out as she turns to gaze into the woods.

"You haven't been to youth group—I've been worried."

Wendla smiles and adjusts her skirt over her knees, turning to look at Anna now and there's something in her eyes, something quiet and resigned, that sends a shiver through Anna's spine. "You've always been so kind, Anna."

She smiles in return, squeezing Wendla's shoulder lightly, confusion slipping into her because this isn't how she remembered Wendla. It's as if something's come along and drained the life from her, as if she's holding a fallen leaf from the tree that Wendla once was, and it's only a matter of time before it fades to brown.

"Anna, if something were to happen to me…"

"Wendla, don't say such things!"

Her face is patient as she ignores Anna, reaches for her hand and holds it gently. Anna feels her heart flutter, her stomach sway.

"Promise me that you'll remember me."

Anna's eyebrows knit together and she tilts her head, hair brushing along her shoulder. "Remember you? Wendla, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Just promise me, Anna."

It's the most forceful, the most like herself, that Anna had seen her all day and so she nods, and Wendla smiles, satisfied, turning her head to look back out at the trees. As she turns, though Anna's hand is still on her shoulder and the other is wrapped up in Wendla's, Anna can feel her start to drift away from her, the path, and disappear into the woods like the spirit of some tree.

"Perhaps you should go home, Wendla. You don't look well."

She doesn't move at first, but as Anna stands and pulls her hand, Wendla rises slowly, walking in a dreamland as she lets Anna lead her home. As Anna lets go of her hand, watches Wendla be collected in the arms of her mother and disappear into her house, she can't help but wonder why her mother can't see that Wendla's half gone already.

* * *

It rains the day of Wendla's funeral. She's thankful no one can see her tears.

* * *

It's on the way back from the graveyard that she tells her mother she'd rather take the long path—through the woods. She doesn't listen to her protests about rain or colds because at this point Anna's starting to feel that there's a sickness looming over all of them already. Otherwise she wouldn't have lost two figures of her childhood to the mud, another to morality.

She's in the woods and it's starting to feel a little better, with the leaves blocking out some of the rain. It's colder but maybe that just sets the mood, and she pulls her shawl tighter around her shoulders, her face still wet from the tears that streak her cheeks. Her mind turns over playing in the stream, tea parties and buying dresses. She hears light laughter on the wind and it's too much.

She stumbles, her foot caught in a root, and she falls, the palm of her hand slicing open on a rock. Hissing under her breath, she starts to try to stand back up when she hears feet crunching on leaves and then a startled voice.

"Anna Lotzer?"

Georg Zierchnitz steps between two trees and hurries toward her, reaching down to slip his hand carefully around her arm and help her up. "Are you alright?"

She feels silly and irritated, caught in her grief, and she nods, stepping away slightly. "Yes, I'm fine. I just fell."

He catches sight of her hand and his eyes go wide. "Your hand—it's bleeding." His hand goes to hers, to hold it still so he can inspect it, and she can feel her cheeks start to color.

"I'm fine, really. It's nothing."

"All the same." It's all he says and for a second she's confused, then she sees his other hand produce a handkerchief, which he dabs gently at her hand. He cleans away the blood and once the crisis is averted it seems they both realize how they're standing, what they're doing. He steps away and so does she, the bright red of her blood tainting his handkerchief in the dull, wet forest.

"Thank you," she murmurs, her eyes flitting down the path. "I must be going home."

He starts to turn back to the road when he turns, calling out to her. "Wait." He's holding out the handkerchief when she turns, eyes jumping between startled and kind. "Here. For your hand."

She slips the fabric from his palm, and for a second their eyes brush and something crawls over her skin, but just as suddenly it's gone. She turns to go home.

* * *

He's sitting at the base of a tree, pen scratching over paper, when she comes up behind him, basket of berries in hand, hair in pigtails brushing her back.

"Georg Zierchnitz?" He looks up suddenly, papers sliding from his lap. She smiles softly and steps around the tree, basket dangling from her fingers. "How are you?"

"Fine," he mumbles as he tries to put the papers back in something of an order, eyes not looking up at Anna as he shifts against the tree. She pauses, waits for him to ask her how she is, waits for anything like polite conversation, but when it doesn't come, she bites her lip and glances away.

"Well… I hope I didn't disturb you." She turns to go the way she came, dress flowing about her legs, when his voice pipes up.

"You didn't. You just…startled me."

She finds Georg looking up at her, hands covering the paper, and she smiles lightly, holding her basket out.

"Would you care for some berries? I've just picked them."

He reaches his hand in and takes a few, staining his fingers red. She eats one for herself and they chew quietly, her eyes on the basket and his on her. "How's your hand?" he asks quietly, and she shakes her head, nose wrinkling.

"Oh, it's fine. Just a scratch, really. Oh!" She stops, eyes wide, and she looks up at him. "I still have your handkerchief!"

He smiles slightly and shakes his head, looking back down at his knees. "Keep it. I've got plenty." They sit in silence a second or two longer before she points to the papers in his lap.

"Were you writing something?"

He nearly chokes on a berry, wiping his fingers in the grass. "Sort of."

She sits across from him, folding her knees primly and setting the basket between them. "What do you mean by that?"

He fidgets, moving his legs about in front of him, then takes a sheet of paper between his fingers, looking down at it. "I'm…writing music."

"Really?"

Nodding sheepishly, he hesitantly hands her a sheet of paper. She hums the tune to herself—she was the best singer at the choir at church, at least before the words started to burn her throat—handing the paper back to Georg with a grin.

"That's wonderful!"

A blush stains his cheeks and he looks at his lap. "Thank you."

"Are you going to have a recital soon?" Her voice rings with innocence, and so when Georg's eyes flicker up with a question she isn't sure what he's asking.

"Would you come?"

It's her turn to blush, turning her eyes to the basket of fruit between them. "I would."

He grins, and she blushes, and there's silence between them before Anna stands, brushing the grass from her skirt. "I'd better go."

He stands quickly, picking her basket up for her and handing it to her. "I'll see you tomorrow—at church?"

She flinches slightly but takes the basket, their fingers brushing in the transition. With a shy smile and a twirl in her skirt, she starts for the way home.

"Yes," she calls over her shoulder.


	2. Chapter 2

**Star-Crossed Souls Slow Dancing**

He isn't sure what the sermon's about because the only thing he can see is two pigtails, held up with pink ribbon, dusting the top of the pew.

She's happy to have another face to let her mind think of during church, more than ghosts of the past, harbingers of death. She's happy to have something alive to think about.

* * *

He steps up behind her father, and she moves around her mother, and they try not to blush.

"How's school going?" she asks, hands folded in front of her.

"Well enough…" He doesn't like to think about it, really; he's taken to watching Herr Sonnenstitch walk about the room and hearing Melchior in his head, the arguments and the echoes of punishment, and he finds it difficult to concentrate.

"And your piano lessons?"

He flushes deeply because any thought of the piano brings up thoughts of—well, enough to make it difficult for him to walk about. He tries to keep his mind clear, focuses on the pastor over Anna's shoulder, and swallows thickly. "Alright, I suppose. I just need to remember to practice more."

"That's what Frau Hollmann keeps telling me. I imagine singing is easier than practicing piano though. At least singing you can do anywhere."

She speaks so easily and he's starting to get a little jealous. He coughs lightly and kicks his toe against the ground.

"Anna?" Her mother turns and Georg feels eyes, cold and unwelcome, scrutinize his face.

"Yes, Mama. Goodbye," she says and Georg doesn't have time to look up and mutter a farewell in return before she's gone, good Sunday dress swaying behind her, and it's all Georg can do to keep his mind off that skirt.

Otto punches his shoulder as he comes up behind him, a grin sliding over his face, and Georg feels a little sick.

"I saw you talking to Anna Lotzer," he says with a wink. Georg shrugs Otto off and starts on the way home, ignoring Otto's jeers as best he can.

* * *

"But Anna, _really_. Georg Zierchnitz?"

Thea's nose wrinkles as she tosses the petals of a flower into the lake, watches them float lazily along the top of the water. Anna tugs her skirt about her knees and settles back against a tree, watching Thea's hands.

"He's nice."

She hasn't been in the mood for Thea and her nose-wrinkling since she stared at Anna in shock that day Anna asked if she'd like to come with her to leave flowers on Wendla's grave.

"But she _sinned_, Anna!" she had whispered fiercely, her eyes flashing. "She shouldn't even be in the church graveyard. How fitting they should put her there next to Moritz; both of them are damned anyway."

Anna had collected her flowers and sat between Wendla's and Moritz's graves until the sun sank below the horizon, watching the sky turn to golden and pink and purple.

"I really don't see where you get that idea from, Anna. _Georg Zierchnitz_. Of all people!" Thea throws the stem into the water. Anna doesn't answer as she watches it float away gently. Instead, she starts to hum to herself, fingering the hem of her dress.

* * *

The day is starting around them, sunlight warm and yellow. Her basket sits between them, pages in a book on his knees ruffling in the wind. To their left, Ilse is laughing, hair swaying in the breeze, a male's shirt dusting the tops of her thighs. Martha picks flowers at Ilse's feet, the trio of girls somehow stumbling into Georg's space. Anna sits by him though, eyes darting over to watch her friends, wondering where the years are taking them, as she feels every change of his breath beside her like an earthquake across her senses.

When he talks, it's as if he's afraid to break this shell that the air has formed around them, and really she can't find it within herself to blame him.

"Fraulien Grossenbustenhalter says I'm almost ready."

A smile slips over her features and above the laughter of the girls, she can hear her heartbeat in her chest. "You play piano beautifully."

If Anna were looking at Georg, she'd see the blush tip his cheeks, and he ducks his head, picking self-consciously at the grass. "Not as beautifully as you sing… Your solo at church was wonderful."

It's her turn to blush, and silence descends on them slowly once more. A cloud moves lazily across the sun, the heat hanging about their shoulders, and though nothing is happening, it feels as if everything is changing between them.

Suddenly there's sharp laughter closer than it was before and then water falls on their laps, spraying their faces. They leap up, Georg's books scattering to the ground, his voice calling out in shock and her mouth open in a silent combination of surprise and laughter. They look up to see Ilse and Martha by a small stream, grins splitting their faces, and Anna and Georg exchange a look before they run after the two girls.

It's a game of chase and tag, no real rules anywhere, and mostly it's all about running until their lungs scream for air. Anna grabs hold of Ilse's hands and they spin each other as Martha and Georg stop for breath, sharing smiles. Ilse spins Anna away from her, skipping off to take Martha's hands, and Anna winds up twirling into Georg.

Her hands hover above his arms, her heart thudding in her chest for a new, unfamiliar reason. He's frozen, staring down at her with wide eyes, his hands shaking because they're so close to her hips—an automatic reaction when she came at him—and he can feel her body heat through her dress.

It could've been days but really it was probably only a few seconds, enough for Ilse and Martha to notice and start giggling to themselves, rolling their eyes at Anna and Georg, frozen in the imaginary hold of a lover's embrace. Somewhere a bird chirps loudly and it's enough to snap Georg out of it, bringing Anna along with him as he suddenly licks his lips and steps backward, hands falling to his side and curling into fists. Anna's hands still over in the air, reaching out to him as he stumbles.

"I'd better go," he mutters, opening his mouth to say something else, one foot getting caught behind the other. In the end he just turns and hurries to grab his things, haphazardly collecting them under his arm and running off.

Ilse and Martha come and take Anna's hands, pulling her toward another sort of dancing game, but Anna's lost the heart for the game, and her eyes keep trailing off in the direction that Georg ran.

* * *

He finds her with flowers in her hand. The wind blows dust across the road, a fine layer settling over their shoes. Her hair flies gently around her face, eyes turned down to watch the motion of her feet as she walks quietly down the road. He finds that his stomach is lurching with a heavier sensation than usual when he stops, putting on a shy smile.

"Hello, Anna."

She stops as if startled, eyes wide, as she looks up, hand holding tighter to the stems of the flowers. "Oh, Georg."

She relaxes but only slightly, shoulders still tense, and he steps toward her, head tilted and breath unsure because he tastes a tension in the air that's bigger than the two of them.

"Where are you off to?"

She bites her lip and he notices how pink they are, like her dress, but his eyes find hers as they gaze into the distance, moist and full of dark emotion that seems to rumble through them like the echoes of thunder.

"The graveyard. It's been a year since…" She turns her eyes to her feet again and Georg lowers his eyes as well, hands folded in front of him. "I'm taking flowers to them," she says gently, her wrist twitching to hold the flowers out from her slightly.

He watches the flower, finds his own mind crowded with the ghost images of faces that had only just faded from his mind. Her dress flutters about her legs in the wind, and when she speaks, she speaks to the road.

"Would you like to come?"

He hasn't been to the graveyard since the second funeral, and his skin crawls as his mind takes a split second to think. It's with a voice he doesn't recognize that he answers quietly, "Yes."

He turns and they start walking together, in silence, but this moment is far past what hangs between them. Their minds turn thoughts over like rocks, looking for what new things might lie beneath the cold, hard stones of the past. She finds small, study determination coated in a thick layer of hope. He finds fear of what has passed, fear that it might happen again, and buried in there, the seed of fear that he might cause it to happen to someone else, another child, his child.

They reach the graveyard with the weight of the past year around their shoulders. Upon Moritz's grave, flowers crowd the bottom of the stone. On Wendla's, a single small daisy rests in front of the inscription, a note tied around the stem. The wind ruffles the paper and Georg can almost read _F.G._ in black ink. The same rests on Moritz's grave.

Anna splits her flowers in two, handing some to Georg as she reaches out and sets hers on Wendla's grave. Georg finds a spot on Moritz's grave, feeling awkward as he kneels in the grass, his mind frantically trying to make himself forget what must fertilize the soil his knees are pressing into.

They stand again, silently, the wind their only company, and in a quiet moment their hands fold together, fingers locking gently in the embrace of two souls caught up in a world that seems to be swallowing them both. They pay their respects, each lost on their own tide of thought. Anna's voice is small.

"Do you ever wonder what happened to him?"

Georg starts, turns toward Anna with a curious glance. "Who?"

Her eyes are still on the graves. "Melchior."

The question knocks him off guard and he swallows quickly, turning his eyes back to the ground. This is when emotion chokes him because this is what's been eating at him, and he gives his shoulders a shrug. "I—Yes. Sometimes."

She doesn't reply but he knows she nods her head, and he can feel in it that she needs more from him, something more like an answer, something she can find comfort in. "I like to think he found a place where he could fit in… He was always… outspoken." He finds a brief smile touch his lips and a slight laugh at his failure to find a word to properly describe Melchior. She half smirks as well, nodding her head once more.

"I admired that about him."

Georg's reply is soft. "Me too." It's a world of silence before he replies. "I always wanted to be more like him."

Her fingers tighten ever-so-slightly around his hand and comfort floods his soul. It's odd, but that strange thickness that filled the air whenever they were around each other before has gone, and he finds only comfort, companionship in the warmth of her hand in his. He hears sniffling and turns to find her crying, tears slipping down her cheeks and spilling onto the ground.

"Anna, you're crying."

She blinks as if surprised to learn this, wiping half-heartedly at her cheeks. He reaches for her handkerchief, and it's before he can think about it that he dabs at her cheeks. Her eyes swim in water as they turn up to find him, and his lips slips between his teeth as he half-smiles, wiping at the tear that's about to fall from her chin.

Before he understands what's happening, her arms are folding around him, her head tucked against his shoulder. This is comfort, innocent, the need to feel the solidness of the other to chase away the emptiness that's been forming within their souls over the past year. She pulls away slowly and their arms drop to the sides, unspoken understanding that something has changed and maybe—maybe it's going to be okay.

Anna turns her eyes to the road, clearing her throat. "I should be heading back."

"Shall I walk you?" The words fall faster than he intends, before he can think about it, and when she shakes her head, her pigtails brush her shoulders.

"No… I'd rather go alone." Her eyes turn up to his with a quiet smile. "But thank you."

He nods and she turns, leaving the cemetery and the graves behind with their bright necklaces of color. He watches her until she disappears down the road.

Chewing his lip, he turns back to Moritz's grave. He thinks of Melchior, touches his mind on homeless and poor—but Melchior is strong, and he holds out the hope that he might be doing well on his own. He entertains the thought that he might even be writing his own book, and it's with a ridiculous smile Georg thinks he'd like to be the first to write a commentary on it.

He finds himself on his knees before Moritz's grave and this time the ground doesn't feel quite so foreign. His fingers reach out and trace the letters of the inscription, his head tilted. Her arms still hang about him, the ghost of her hair tickling his cheek. The stone beneath his fingers is cold, hard, lifeless, and it starts to burn his fingers. He pulls his hand away.

"Moritz, I—" The words die in his throat and his fingers curl into a fist. He can't remember what he was trying to say, can't pull the words out through the sudden sensation that steals through him like an icy grip.

It's with a flash he remembers walking away from here after the funeral, remembers laughing with Otto. Bitter words spilled from his throat then, and he recalls them with something like distant, muted horror. Anna's eyes loom in his mind, her pain, and he remembers Moritz's eyes, scared and skittish, and always searching.

He swallows down the lump in his throat and tries to fight back the bitter want to cry, to let out this feeling as easily as Anna had done not a second before. He reaches his hand out again, lets his fingers rest over Moritz's name.

The words come easy now.

"I'm sorry."

* * *

He'll have his arms around her again soon, and she'll start to relish the way her head fits against his shoulder. Flowers become a tradition, every year, their fingers entwined. They hold up the fragments of the past between them, fill in their own holes with them, but the last few missing gaps can only be filled by the other.

It's something like happy ever after, with two graves and the whisper of loss dancing between their shoulders. It's a happy ever after because they've seen what an unhappy ending looks like, and they promise themselves, each other, that they won't let that happen to themselves—or their children.


End file.
